Woman sues Georgia city over law banning sex toys

Melissa Davenport says sex toys helped save her 24-year-old marriage after multiple sclerosis destroyed her nervous system and her sex life.

The Sandy Springs ordinance only allows residents to buy sex toys if they have a prescription for them. Only in America is it acceptable to buy a gun with your groceries, but not a sex toy.

A Georgia woman is suing her city over an ordinance that bans her from buying sex toys. The 2009 Sandy Springs ordinance only lets people buy sex toys if they have a prescription for the devices or a medical reason for needing them.

Melissa Davenport, who suffers from MS, says sex toys helped save her marriage after the disease crippled her sex life. She’s suing Sandy Springs, Ga., over a 2009 ordinance that bans residents from buying sex toys unless they have a prescription for them.

“Sexual response, including arousal and orgasm, can be directly affected” by MS, the lawsuit says. By 2003, the couple’s sex life was nonexistent.

“It had started to really tear us apart,” Davenport, 44, told the TV station. “The nerve pathways interfered with the nerves going to my intimate area to where I had no feeling.”

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Woman sues Georgia city over law banning sex toys

Still, no doctor will prescribe them to her, she says. “They have this dirty mind about how people are going to use it,” Davenport says. “People really do need devices because they need it for health reasons and to have a healthy intimate life with their spouse.”

The lawsuit includes a second plaintiff — Marshall Henry, an artist who uses sex toys in his work. Henry claims his artwork has suffered due to his inability to buy one of his materials.

Gerry Weber, the attorney filing the lawsuit, says the ordinance violates citizens’ right to privacy.

“People have the right to decide for themselves whether these devices help their intimate life, and the government has no business being (in) the bedroom and second guessing that decision,” he tells the TV station.